
ClassX^4^2L 
Rook X94 



OUR COUNTRY'S TROUBLES. 



SERMON 



PEEACHED IN 



THE CHURCH OF THE EPIPHANY, 



PHILADELPHIA, JUNE 29, 1856 



BY 

REV. DUDLEY A. TYNG, 

RECTOR, 



PUBLISHED BY REQUEST OF LAYJIEN IN BOSTON. 



BOSTON: 

PUBLISHED BY JOHN P. JEWETT AND COMPANY. 

CLEVELAND, OHIO: 

JEWETT, PROCTOR AND WORTHINGTON. 

NEW YORK : SHELDON, BLAKEMAN AND COMPANY. 

1856. 



TfLf 



CAMBRIDGE: 
ALLEN AND FAKNHAM, PRINTERS. 



IN EXCHAIW'JP 



JfeN 5 ,9i7 



SERMON. 



1 CORINTHIANS XII. 26. 

Whether one biember suffer, all the members suffer with it: or one 
member be honored, all the members rejoice with it. 

It is a mooted question how far the Christian pulpit 
may, and ought to be enlisted in the consideration of 
current events, and the discussion of questions of pub- 
lic interest. It is undoubtedly a great evil when the 
teachers of religion forsake their appropriate themes 
to mingle in all the heated controversies of the day. 
Nothing could be more calculated to break down the 
influence of the ministry, and to rear up insuperable 
barriers of angry prejudice against the message of mercy 
which it is its chief business to declare. But may there 
not also be an opposite extreme ? May there not be 
silence when great principles are at stake ? May not 
great wrongs go unchallenged of the pulpit till there 
be supposed nothing in them inconsistent with re- 
ligion? May not the dread of offence be carried so 
far as to put the pulpit in bondage ? And may not 
the refusal to take sides in great questions of public 



opinion, result in the gospel's being supposed to have 
nothing to do with the affairs of society, and in eon- 
tempt on all hands for the ministry for its fear of 
speaking out ? Ministers have the same interest in 
society and its institutions as other citizens ; perhaps 
more so : for their happiness is peculiarly bound up in 
the right influence of religious and moral principles 
upon the community. Society can suffer in no mem- 
ber without a true-hearted Christian ministry suffering 
with it. 

Religion itself, moreover, is often vitally affected by 
events transpiring in social and ^^o^itical life. Evil 
principles may be at work in the social system, whose 
ultimate tendency is to destroy the practical influence 
of Christianity over the conduct of men, and to under- 
mine the foundations of their faith. Is the pulpit to 
keep silence until the adversaries of the faith, having 
completely invested it with intrenchments in public 
custom and opinion, are boldly demanding its surren- 
der ? Human nature is an unit. Its many interests 
are but one body. And the sufferings of any one of 
its members are felt in the vital organs. Questions of 
social and political economy, as well as of moral prin- 
ciple, may be the media of deadly wounds to the re- 
ligious life. In fact, Christianity enters into every 
interest of man. And as Christians and Christian min- 
isters we are interested in every thing that concerns 
humanity. We cannot disconnect our religion from 
the details of our common life. It affects or is affected 
by them all. " They are many members, yet but one 
body. And the eye cannot say unto the hand, I have 



no need of thee ; nor again, the head to the feet, I 
have no need of you." "And whether one member 
suffer, all the members suffer with it ; or one member 
be honored, all the members rejoice with it." Owing 
to the close interchange of sympathy and influence, 
the events of the day may assume a deep religious 
significance. The same events which in one aspect agi- 
tate commercial interests, and in another convulse the 
political circles, may in yet another be fraught with 
stirring interest for the religious communitj'. And 
while they awaken great contention on the plane of so- 
cial or political hfe, they may also, from the higher 
stand-point of the Christian patriot, be seen to affect 
the dearest rights and interests of men, and to endan- 
ger great principles to the support of which the pulpit 
is bound. At such times the Christian ministry ma}^ be 
criminal if it does not speak out boldly in behalf of 
right, carefully avoiding, indeed, the arousing of those 
passions which belong to the lower aspect of events, but 
fearlessly and dispassionately directing public sentiment 
by the higher principles of divine revelation. 

It seems to me that we have now reached such a 
time. Events are transpiring which bear most mo- 
mentously on all our rights as men, and duties as 
Christians. All that is most dear and valuable to us as 
citizens is put in jeopardy. The principles and influ- 
ence of Christianity, which first founded our institu- 
tions, can alone preserve them to us in their integrity 
in the present crisis. And I claim the right as a 
Christian minister to declare what I believe to be im- 
portant truth, and to do my part, small as it may be, 



towards tlie settlement of the difficulties which encom- 
pass ns. 

I claim a patient hearing, and a candid comparison 
with the jDrinciples of the Bible. If I am wrong, I am 
open to conviction; if I am right, the declaration of 
the truth will bring the responsibility of walking by its 
light. With this prefatory statement let me call 3'our 
attention, — 

I. To the EVILS to be deplored. 

For the first time in the history of this country, it is 
the scene of civil w^ar. Armed men, in battle array, 
are marching on its soil, and carrying with them all the 
horrors of a hostile invasion. Towns are sacked, houses 
pillaged, property plundered and destroyed, women and 
children driven in terror from their homes, and men 
shot down by their own doors ! Society is in confusion, 
public security at an end, peaceful industry interrupted, 
and a thriving Territory reduced to a state of nature, 
where the only protection is that of force, and the 
household cannot lie down at night without fear of the 
assassin. Families are driven out from lands which 
they have tilled and houses which they have built, and 
warned to leave the country or be hung. Fields lie 
unsown, and crops are left unploughed, because armed 
marauders have stolen the farmer's horses and killed his 
oxen, and obliged him to skulk in secret for fear of his 
life, or join bodies of his neighbors who have armed in 
defence of their homes and families. All the horrors 
which existed when invading armies marched with 
blood and desolation on our soil; all the suffering 
which drenched our frontiers when the warwhoop of 



the savage aroused the sleeping household for the 
tomahawk and the fagot, are now renowned in un- 
happy Kansas. Hardly a day passes without bring- 
ing telegraphic news of some new outrage, so dreadful 
that we can scarce realize its possibility, or arouse our- 
selves to feel as the occasion demands. And who are 
the authors of all these outrages on American citi- 
zens ? Not the savage Indian nor the foreign invader, 
but their own countrymen, citizens of our own free and 
happy land, imbruing their hands in brothers' blood. 
And what is the crime for which their brethren are 
thus subjected to invasion and violence ? Merely differ- 
ence of opinion. Merely assertion of their right to think, 
speak, write, and act according to their own conscience 
and interests in forming the institutions of a Territory 
into which the capital and population of the country 
were invited by a solemn act of the Federal Govern- 
ment. On the 30th of May, 1854, the Territory of Kan- 
sas w^as thrown open to settlers by act of Congress, and 
the privilege of determining the character of its insti- 
tutions accorded to those who should become residents 
of its soil. Attracted by this opening for industry and 
enterprise, large numbers of persons from all sections of 
the country emigrated to the Territory, and soon made 
its prairies to smile with cultivation and dotted its sur- 
face with towns and villages. Never country opened 
with brighter prospects. But how soon was this bright 
morn overcast. On the 29th of November, 1854, the 
infant Territory was to elect a delegate to appear and 
speak in its behalf in the National Congress. On that 
day more than one thousand armed men from an ad- 



8 



joining State invaded the Territory, drove judges and 
legal voters from the polls, and by fraudulent ballots 
elected a man of their own. On the 30th of March, 
1855, the inhabitants of Kansas were to have elected 
their Territorial Legislature. More than four thousand 
armed men from the same State again invaded the 
Territorj-, took possession of the polls and elected their 
own candidates, some of them residents of their own 
State. The recent investigations of the Congressional 
Committee have proved that of five thousand five hun- 
dred votes cast on that day, less than one thousand 
were of actual residents of the Territory. Surely it 
was bad enough to see a Legislature imposed on them 
by force and fraud. But w^hat sort of laws did they 
pass ? Hear, and ask yourselves whether we live in 
the nineteenth century, and in a free and Christian re- 
public. They reenacted in a mass all the slave laws 
of Missouri, merely adding that wherever the word 
" State " occurs in them it shall be construed to mean 
" Territory." They made the non-admission of the right 
to hold slaves in the Territory a disqualification for 
sitting as juror. They enacted that to say that j^ersons 
have not a right to hold slaves in that Territory should 
be punished with two years' imprisonment at hard labor. 
That writing, printing, or circulating any thing against 
slavery should be punished with five years' imprison- 
ment at hard labor. That the harborino- of fuo-itive 
slaves should be punished with five years' imprison- 
ment at hard labor. That assisting slaves to escape 
should be punished with death. That assisting slaves to 
escape from any Territory, and take refuge in that Ter- 



9 



ritory, should be jDunished with deaih. That the print- 
ing or circuhation of pubUcations calculated to incite 
slaves to insurrection, should be punished with death. 
To secure these laws perpetuity, they enacted that all 
who do not swear to support the Fugitive Slave Law 
should be disqualified as voters, but that any one might 
vote who will pay $1.00, and swear to uphold the Fu- 
gitive Slave Law and the Nebraska bill. And, still 
further to guard against all contingencies, they ap- 
pointed non-residents to town and county offices for six 
years ahead. 

Thus, by one stroke of combined fraud and force, the 
great question of social rights, whose settlement had 
been pledged to the citizens themselves, w^ere decided 
by an invading army, whose agents established slavery 
against the wishes of the people, disfranchise all who 
oppose it, open the polls to all pro-slavery non-residents, 
and shut up all who speak, write, print, or circulate any 
thing against it with long imprisonment at hard labor. 
What has become of the rights of American citizens? 
Talk of obedience to law ! Would you, would any 
American, obey such laws so imposed? Where were 
the spirit of our Revolutionar}^ fathers, if such oppres- 
sion could be submitted to ? Where is our republican 
government, if such rights can be taken away ? 

But what was done in opposition? There was no 
armed resistance, no collision with assumed authority. 
The people of Kansas simply denied the legality of 
the enactments and the obligation of obedience, and 
falling back on inherent rights, went through the pre- 
liminaries of a State organization, and applied to Con- 



10 



gress for relief. That relief has not been yet afforded. 
And what has since transpired ? A third, fourth, and 
fifth armed invasion has taken place, each with increased 
aggravation of outrage. Pillage and plunder and mur- 
der have increased from day to day. Large bodies of 
armed men from distant and adjoining States are in the 
Territory, with no attempt at becoming settlers, without 
means of honest support, living by the pillage of those 
who differ from themselves in sentiment, and perpetrat- 
ing cruelties unknown even in war. Government troops 
have been used to overawe all attempts at resistance, 
and moved about so as to expose unprotected towns to 
violence. A fourfold process of oppression has been 
used to ruin and drive out those whose only crime is 
the claiming of rights guaranteed them by the very law 
which invited them to Kansas. First, innumerable in- 
dictments for imaginary crimes are made out by a 
corrupt judiciary against all Free State men of influ- 
ence, while the worst of crimes by men of opposite 
politics have gone unnoticed. Secondly, armed horde,s 
of ruffians, under pretence of maintaining "law and 
order," patrol the country, committing all the outrages 
which have been described. Thirdly, the United States 
dragoons are made use of by the local authorities to 
suppress any risings for self-defence, and kept out of 
the way when attacks are to be made. And lastly, 
"Vigilance Committees" are appointed to drive ofi^ 
with threats of " Lynch law," all those who, by the 
other methods, have not been subdued. All this has 
been going on for months. And recent accounts an- 
nounce that the sufferers themselves are driven by des- 



11 



peration to armed defence, and the hostile bands are 
now watching each other, and meeting in deadly con- 
flict. Civil war is begun. And where is it to end, un- 
less it can be suppressed at once in the place of its 
birth ? Let it not be said that we have no interest in 
this matter. Distant and feeble as she may be, Kansas 
is a member of our body politic. The same life-blood 
which nourishes our own community flows through her. 
And the wounds and ansruish which she endures are 
felt to the remotest parts of the Republic. Ties of 
friendship and of blood unite her suffering children 
to all sections of our country. And were these want- 
ing, a common nationality binds them in one body to 
us all, and the great heart of humanity enfolds them 
in its sympathies. "Whether one member suffer, all 
the members suffer with it ; or one member be honored, 
all the members rejoice with it." 

At the same time that these events have been transpir- 
ing, another scene has been enacted which has inflicted 
a still deeper wound on the honor and peace of our coun- 
try. A member of the Senate of the United States, a 
man honored equally for his virtue and his attain- 
ments, has been stricken down and beaten by a mem- 
ber of Congress till his blood stained the floor of the 
Senate, for w^ords spoken in debate. It matters not 
what were the words which gave offence, though it may 
well be supposed that language unchallenged at the 
time by a body whose majority were in opposition to 
the speaker, did not transgress the ordinary limits of 
parliamentary debate. It matters not wdiat were the 
words, nor who the speaker, nor who the assailant. It 



12 



was a principle which was stricken down. And that 
principle is one of all the pillars of onr free institutions. 
"Without the right of freedom of speech, neither our 
liberties nor our religion are secure. If the bludgeon 
is to be the ruling power in our country, where will be 
our boasted freedom and national Christianity ? If the 
flag of our country, and the symbols of her liberty can- 
not protect the members of her government within the 
w^alls of her Capitol, in the discharge of their official 
duty, what is to become of our republic? With the 
freedom of the press overthrown in Kansas, and the 
freedom of the Senate assailed in Washino-ton, how 
long before the freedom of the pulpit shall be also at 
the mercy of a popular majority or of a reckless and 
excitable bully ? There is not a legislator, or an editor, 
or a clergyman in the country, whose right to advocate 
what he conscientiously believes, nor a citizen whose 
right to representation of his sentiments, has not been 
assailed in the blows which laid the eloquent Sumner 
senseless on the Senate chamber. But the act itself is 
not so ominous of evil as its indorsement. To hear it 
defended and eulogized throughout the wdiole section 
represented by the assassin, by public assemblies giving 
votes of thanks for his iniquity, by the press almost 
unanimously holding it up as worthy of imitation, 
and by fellow-representatives who screen the offender 
from punishment, may well make one feel sadly appre- 
hensive for our country. It indicates that we are 
becoming unworthy of our heritage, and that the sen- 
timent of justice and right has rotted away in the 
foundation of government. Alas for our country, when 



13 



the makers of her laws dare not speak in defence of 
what they deem human right, or must go armed with 
deadly weapons for protection in the discharge of their 
duty ! God forbid that the ministers of religion should 
refuse to s*peak in reprobation of the evil. 

II. But let us look, secondly, at the impelling 'principle 
of these outrages. They have all one impulse, the 
aggressive spirit of slavery. Let it be noted and 
remembered that all these wrongs grow out of a deter- 
mination to extend the area of human bondage. Why 
are armed hordes now traversing Kansas with pillage 
and murder? Simply that they may extend over it 
the blight of slavery. Why are men illegally arrested, 
robbed, driven from home, hunted like beasts, or shot 
down dead in the fields ? Simj)ly because they desire 
to save their home and fiimily from the blight of sla- 
very. Why are they denied the protection of a govern- 
ment whose pride it is to protect its citizens to the 
farthest verge of the habitable globe ? Merely because 
they will not submit to force and fraud to be cursed 
with slavery. Why was Sumner assailed and beaten in 
the Senate ? Merely because he spoke too pointedly 
and plainly for their deliverance from the attempted 
curse of slavery. The sole impulse of all these out- 
rages is the desire to extend slavery. The sole crime 
of the sufferers is the invincible desire to be free. The 
blood of a Senator has stained the floor of the Senate 
chamber, the blood of her citizens has been poured out 
like water on the virgin soil of Kansas, merely that it 
may be made a land of bondage. The whole South is 
aroused and pours forth invading armies, and the whole 

2 



14 



influence and power of the Federal Government are 
employed to aid them, merely because the actual resi- 
dents of Kansas, in the exercise of the rights guaran- 
teed them by the law which opened the Territory to 
settlers, are largely determined that it shall be free. 
Ignoble contest ! Where slavery is let it remain. Let 
it be apologized for and mitigated as it can. I am not 
one of those who would attack the South for the inher- 
itance of perplexity and shame which Northern cupid- 
ity was originally a joint agent in introducing. Let 
them mourn over the embarrassments and evils of their 
lot, and strive to discharge their duty as Christian mas- 
ters to the people they have found dependent and in 
servitude. Thus out of their birthright of misfortune 
they may work out a blessing to the subject race, and a 
mission of mercy for themselves. To apologize for an 
involuntary evil is one thing. To strive to extend and 
perpetuate it is another. We may regard the former 
with the truest charity. But as freemen and Chris- 
tians, what must we say of the latter ? 

But why are Southern men so madly resolved that 
Kansas shall be thrown open to slavery ? Is it because 
they desire themselves to be residents of the country ? 
Very few of them have any such idea. But it will 
give them, first, and increase of political power. It 
will wheel another State into the phalanx, and give 
them two more Senatorial votes for that control of the 
Government which the far swifter progress of the Free 
States has taken from them in the House of Repre- 
sentatives. Few among us have reflected on the po- 
litical power given by slavery to the few. Three fifths 



15 



of all the slaves are counted in with the whites as 
the basis of representation, largely increasing the po- 
litical importance of the white person at the South 
over the white person at the North. Of the whites, 
large numbers are either disfranchised by a pro2Derty 
qualification, or are completely under the control of 
their wealthier neighbors. Political honors and influ- 
ence are confined to a few. In the whole fifteen slave- 
holding States there are less than one hundred thousand 
persons owning more than ten slaves each. How many 
of these are desirous of deserting their plantations and 
emigrating to Kansas ? But these are the persons who 
control the policy of fifteen States, and by their in- 
fluence at home and at the North have controlled the 
policy and monopolized the honors of the General Gov- 
ernment. Is it to be wondered that they should make 
such desperate efforts to extend so disproportionate an 
importance ? And as it grows so it will grow until this 
whole land of liberty shall be made tributary to the 
perpetuation of himian bondage. 

The establishment of slavery in Kansas will give 
them, secondly, a new market for slaves. The pecu- 
niary value of slavery arises not from the productive- 
ness of slave labor. It costs much and produces little, 
wastes largely and wears out the soil it cultivates. Left 
to itself, it impoverishes, in the long run, both land and 
owner, and would gradually work out its own extermi- 
nation. But slave-breeding compensates for the expen- 
siveness of slave labor. To breed human beings for sale, 
to rear immortal souls that they may be driven like 
cattle to the market and sold to the highest bidder, is 



16 



a profitable business. Families and estates are main- 
tained by such breeding and sale, often of blood rela- 
tions. To keep up the price the market must be ex- 
tended. New States and Territories must have their 
virgin soil thrown open to slavery, and as their lauds 
also become impoverished, join the slave-breeding States 
in the ceaseless cry of the horse-leech and her daugh- 
ters. Kansas is uow invaded and outraged merely that 
it may be made a land of bondage, and that for the 
increase of a political power inimical to our free institu- 
tions, and a stimulus to the breeding of human beings 
for sale. 

And what is the pretence under which these evil 
deeds are covered up, and the acquiescence of the 
country in them is sought? It is the equal right of 
men of all sections of the country to go with their 
property into the national territory. It is said that to 
deny the right of slaveholders to carry their property 
there, is to destroy the equality of our citizens. As 
this is the grand plea, which is designed to, and to some 
extent does, impose on the public mind for excuse of 
all these enormities, it is essential that it should be 
examined. Let it be observed then, in the first place, 
that the claimed right of carrying one's identical property 
with him in removal, is an absurdity. How much prop- 
erty is there in its nature so local that it cannot be 
removed ? Who could remove his farm, or his fishery, 
or his water-power? Yet who ever thought of de- 
claiming against the injustice of Nature and Provi- 
dence, because he could not take them to Kansas? 
The proceeds of their sale he can take. And has any- 



17 



body ever denied to the slaveholder the right to take to 
Kansas the proceeds of the sale of his slaves as well as 
the proceeds of the sale of his plantation ? Secondly, 
the right of property in human beings is not a natural 
right, but merely the result of local laws. Outside the 
jurisdiction of those laws, the right does not exist. 
There are States where lotteries are allowed by law. 
A lottery interest is the property of its holder. Be- 
cause lotteries are proscribed in Kansas or elsewhere, 
has the lottery holder cause to complain of the over- 
throw of his constitutional rights? Shall Kansas be 
invaded and drenched in blood because its inhabitants 
will not pass the local laws which in other States have 
made lotteries property ? With as much reason as 
because they will not establish property in human flesh 
and blood. The property which results from local laws 
can be sold, where those local laws have made it valua- 
ble, and its proceeds taken wherever the owner may 
please. And is the Union to be convulsed, a peaceful 
Territory made the scene of war, and industrious citizens 
robbed and murdered, because some hotheaded individ- 
ual has resolved that instead of taking- his thousand dol- 
lars to Kansas in gold and silver, he will take it in the 
shape of a lottery othce or a brother man ? Let the 
flimsy pretext be understood. If the right of holding 
human beings as property results merely from local law, 
it is limited by the law which created it. If it be a nat- 
ural right it is as indefeasible in Pennsylvania as it is in 
Kansas. And this will be the final issue. 

But thirdly, it seems to be entirely forgotten that 
there are rights on the other side. It is a fundamental 

2* 



18 



principle in law that one man must not, by his property, 
injure that of his neighbors. The welfare of the one 
must give way to the welflire of the many. Now if one 
man has property in a fellow, there are thousands of 
others who have more undoubted property in them- 
selves. If one claims the right of making the bodily 
labor of his fellow subserve his own comfort and advan- 
tage, there are thousands of others who claim a divine 
and indefeasible right to make their own good arms 
available to their own support and advancement. And 
these two rights conflict. For slave labor and free 
labor are opposed to each other. Slavery degrades 
bodily labor. It makes a man's bodily strength and 
manual skill less availing for his own profit and eleva- 
tion. It thus diminishes and takes away his inherent 
property in himself It lessens his pecuniary reward, 
and shuts up the door of promotion. The question is, 
therefore, between the right of one man to the muscles 
of his neighbor and the right of thousands to the full 
benefit of their own muscles. It is whether one man 
is to leave his slave behind him, or whether a thousand 
white citizens are to be enslaved if they go. The rights 
of all our laboring classes, ten thousand to one slave- 
holder, are invaded in the attempt at the violent 
subjugation of Kansas. Moreover, there are many 
methods of remunerative labor of more intellectual 
character that are available only in a free community. 
In fact, there is scarcely a department of ingenuity or 
power, which the history and present state of our coun- 
try do not show to be circumscribed and depreciated 
by tlie presence of slavery. The intellectual, literary, 



19 



and inventive, as well as the bodily powers of man 
become less available for individual and social pros- 
perity. Every man, therefore, who is not himself a 
slave-holder, is interested for himself, his children, his 
relatives and friends in the exclusion of slavery. His 
property and their property in their own minds and 
bodies is depreciated by the introduction of slave labor. 
The inalienable rights which God himself has given to 
him and them are arrayed against the merely local 
and transferable, not to say disputable, right of the 
slave-holder. The suffering in Kansas, the suffering 
of Sumner, is not in resistance of human right, but it 
is martyrdom in defence of the rights of the many 
against the aggression of a few. And the question is 
not whether there shall be maintained the rio;hts of a 
few thousand slave-holders, but whether shall be main- 
tained the rights of millions of freemen. 

III. But, thirdly, let us not lose sight of the divine 
agency in all the troubles which have come upon us. 
We are taught in Holy Scripture that the providence 
of God overrules the actions of men no less than the 
operations of nature. Every human agent is to the 
Lord only as the saw in the hand of him that shaketh 
it. No man can have any power at all against the ob- 
ject of his hatred or oppression, except it be given him 
from above. "Man proposes, but God disposes." And 
therefore when there is evil in a city or a country, w^e 
-are to look above the human instrumentalities, and 
.humble ourselves under the hand of God, and inquire 
• jhy He hath dealt so greivously with us. Especially 
s this the case in public calamities. For as bodies 



20 



politic have no existence in the world to come, their 
judgment and recompense, unlike that of individuals, 
can take place only in this world. The question which 
we ought to ask ourselves, therefore, is, "Wherefore 
hath the Lord dealt thus with His servants ? " Many 
are oiu' national offences. But there is ever a corre- 
spondence between the offence and its punishment. 
And .70 are to search out the sins and errors for which 
this special visitation has been sent. 

Doubtless, one sin for which we are suffering is the 
base spirit of truckling and pandering to sectional 
interests and prejudices, which has for so many years 
characterized the prime movers of our political ma- 
chinery. Politics have been a mere trade, conducted 
without honesty or principle for selfish aggrandizement. 
Vainly do we look for patriotism in the wire-working 
of our political parties. The whole government is 
administered upon the principle of the division of the 
spoils. There has been no prejudice so opposed to the 
spirit of our institutions, no sectional interest so degrad- 
ing, that political leaders, low and high, were not willing 
to sell themselves to it for votes. There has been no 
combination of parties too inconsistent, unprincipled, and 
corrupt to be entered into for the sake of office and 
public money. In particular, the leading political parties 
have for years been conducted in rivalry of subservience 
to the interests of slavery. The interests of the nation 
have been disresiraded and sacrificed in disg^raceful un- 
derbidding for the slave-holding vote. There was no 
deep so low for one party to descend into, that some 
" lower deep still opening wide " was not discovered by 



21 



the other. For more than a generation has this system 
of self-abasement been going on. No wonder that those 
who have been the objects of this soHcltation should 
have been educated into the idea that the whole gov- 
ernment of the country should be conducted for the 
benefit of slavery. If our unhappy country is now 
suffering from Southern violence, it has been brought 
on ns by that long and increasing selfabasement of 
Northern politicians. Especially is this the case with 
our present agitations. A new scene of commotion had 
been settled by new concessions, to which for the sake 
of peace, all parties had assented. The whole land was 
at rest and quiet. Slavery was demanding nothing more, 
and its opponents had made up their minds to acquiesce 
in the settlement, when, for pure party purposes and 
for personal aggrandizement, the time-honored barrier 
of freedom was overthrown as a new bid in the auction 
which has sacrificed the domain of the nation for the 
slave-holding vote. Let the authors of the iniquity be 
nameless here, as they deserve to be in the annals of 
the Republic. Insane and unprincipled ambition is the 
source of all the agitation and turmoil and bloodshed 
which has been rending the land asunder. The whole 
people have witnessed so tamely the successive betrayals 
of their interests, and voted so docilely on the issues 
lihey presented, that hope had been conceived of their 
"inlimited submission. The sectional jealousies which it 
has stirred up anew, and the attempt to secure, by vio- 
lence, wdiat slavery understood to be offered it by the 
measure, is its natural consequence, and the providen- 



oo 



tial punishment of the nation for the iniquity which it 
sanctioned and encouraged. 

Another poHtical sin for which the nation is thus 
suffering, is the neglect of poHtical duty by respect- 
able citizens. We have boasted much of our political 
rights ; but we have been sadly unmindful of our po- 
litical duties. How large a proportion of the most 
respectable and influential of our citizens have wholly 
abstained from the nomination and election of our 
rulers. The whole business of nominations has been 
given up to caucuses, chiefly composed of the ambitious 
and the vile. Assemblies in which no respectable 
person could appear, have brought out candidates of 
their own, for inferior offices, and conventions of in- 
terested men have long; wranded out the nomination to 
higher posts of those to whose election they could pin 
their own hopes of office to be acquired or retained. 
All honesty and all patriotism have quite disappeared 
from our political system. Politics have become a 
trade so low that few respectable men dare touch it. 
Not an election can be carried without money, and bar- 
gaining, and rum. And in consequence not a bill can 
be carried through our national legislature without 
bribes. Yet orderly and respectable citizens see those 
iniquities without troubling themselves for their correc- 
tion. Absorbed in their own business and comfort, they 
leave the rule of the country they care not to whom. 
And yet they boast of their political rights. But God 
has given no right without obligation of use. The 
right of self-government involves the duty of self-gov- 



23 



ernment, the duty of selecting and electing the rulers 
of our people. This sacred duty, due to ourselves, 
mankind, and God, has been wofully neglected, and, 
therefore, God has turned our neglect into our punish- 
ment, and chastised the land with misrule and civil 
war. 

Kindred and consequential to these has been another 
sin — the entire divorce of the whole system of politics 
from the fear of God. If respectable men, when they 
kept aloof from the selection of condidates for office, 
also threw away their allegiance to party, the evil 
would be less. But, by a strange confusion of moral 
sense, the obligation to party is made unquestionable 
and supreme. No matter what may be the character 
of its agents — no matter what may be the evil princi- 
ples or iniquitous measures incorporated in its action, 
how many good men there are for whom the single 
consideration, that it is the action of their own pai'ty, 
is enough. They ask no questions, listen to no argu- 
ment, recognize no higher authority. How few Chris- 
tian men ever think of taking counsel of God in ques- 
tions of public affairs, and giving religion the control of 
their politics. How few citizens recognize their respon- 
sibility to God for their political influence. How few 
men of principle bring their political conduct to the 
same tests as their ordinary intercourse. Now, let it be 
remembered, that the ultimate responsibility of every 
measure rests with the people, and in this matter, as in 
all others, each one must answer for himself Caucuses 
of the idle and dissolute may nominate whom they 
please, leaders of political parties may venture on what 



24 



iniquities tliey -svill, but to the people belongs the re- 
sponsibility of their adoption. Without the sanction of 
the people they sink into the obscurity which they de- 
serve. It is on this principle that God is dealing with 
us as a people. The American people have been charac- 
terized by a blind and unscrupulous adherence to party 
— the political morality of our country has become a 
by-word and a hissing — the whole people, by negli- 
gence or party spirit, have become partakers in the 
guilt of actions which, if they had not been in politics, 
would be a loathing to the moral sense of the commu- 
nity. And, therefore, God has punished the nation with 
the legitimate results of their own misconduct. 

For these national offences God has justly brought 
upon us disgrace and suffering, and a discord which 
threatens the direst disasters in the future. 

IV. But let us inquire, fourthly, into the irrovidcntial 
design of these afilictions. What lesson are they sent to 
teach, what practical end to secure? Why have the 
truckling subserviency of Northern politicians and the 
arrogjant afr^ressions of the slave power been allowed 
to proceed so far unchecked, and to bring forth such 
disastrous fruits? Is it not to bring back the public 
mind to the views of slavery which were entertained at 
the formation of our government, and so to open anew 
the way for its amelioration and ultimate removal ? A 
great change has come over the public sentiment in 
regard to slavery within the last twenty-five or thirty 
years. Previous to that time it found its apologists 
neither North nor South. It was lamented and deplored 
on every hand as a necessary evil. The most that 



25 



could be said in reg;ard to it was that livino; men were 
not responsible for its introduction, and that it was not 
yet safe to attempt its abrogation. All professed to, 
look forward to a time when it should cease to be. 
With this view all moderate men were satisfied. They 
blushed at it as an anomaly in the land of freedom, and 
mourned over it before God as an evil they would not 
have laid to their charge. The strengthening of liberty, 
the growth of civilization, and the influence of Chris- 
tianity, then held out the hope of approaching deliver- 
ance. And the feeling of many pious and excellent 
people is still the same. But the public aspect and 
expression of slavery is entirely altered. It is now 
claimed on the one hand, and the doctrine is assented 
to on the other, that it is a fundamental part of our 
national policy ; that our Constitution is designed for its 
protection, and that it is to grow and extend itself with- 
out limit on the national territory. All hope and idea of 
its removal is discarded. It is transformed into a perma- 
ment element of American society. The programmes 
of political leaders now allow no hope to the unfortu- 
nate slave and his no less unfortunate master. The in- 
herited evil is transformed into the wilful sin of the 
present generation. The original sin of slavery is fast 
becoming, through corrupt politicians, the freewill crime 
of the American people. This presents the matter in a 
very different aspect before God and the civilized world. 
Whatever may be said in the way of temporary exten- 
uation, slavery and human right, slavery and the Chris- 
tian law of love are in irreconcilable opposition. To 
do the best we can with an inherited evil, until Provi- 

3 



26 



dence enables us to put it away, may receive blessing 
from the Lord. But because of some incidental advan- 
tages to resolve on its permanence and extension, will 
surely receive his curse, and bring ruin to our country. 
So gradually has the change of temper and purpose 
been introduced, that, as a nation, we were hardly aware 
of the sin in which we were becoming ensnared. But 
the recent events have given such a shock to the spirit 
of freedom as to arouse the nation to perceive the gulf 
before us. May it be made the means of a recoil of 
public sentiment which shall put the system of human 
bondage back where it was at the formation of our 
government. May this demonstration of its spirit and 
tendency prevent all tampering with it in future. Thus 
God will make the wrath of man to praise Him ; and 
then, doubtless the remainder of wrath will He re- 
strain. 

Y. It now remains that we should consider the duties 
of the present crisis. The time will not allo^7 more 
than a brief enumeration. 

1. The first duty of the crisis is a right public senti- 
ment. Ours is a government of opinion. To public 
opinion every party and every coalition is compelled 
to bow. It is mightier than bayonets. The only diffi- 
culty is in bringing the national mind to a decision. 
There is freer circulation of news in this country than 
in any other, and yet there is surprising ignorance and 
unconcern of what is taking place in the country. 
Many of our countrymen have no adequate idea of 
what has occurred in Kansas. They know that there 
has been trouble and fighting, but their information is 



27 



most partial and incorrect. Very few of the political 
journals have presented a faithful report of facts. They 
have been advocates and not witnesses, catching up 
events for special pleading for party effect, instead of 
relating the whole truth before the tribunal of the 
people. Now let every person seek to inform himself 
and his neighbors of events as they are. Put the facts 
before the people. Let them know the outrages which 
have been committed. Let them understand the spirit 
which has actuated them, and the end at which they 
aim. Let them be taught to view the facts and prin- 
ciples of the present crisis, irrespective of party affini- 
ties. And who can doubt that the American people 
will condemn this imbruing of hands in brothers' blood, 
and tyrannizing over brethren in questions of right; 
rebuke the aggressor, and spread the mighty shield of 
public sympathy and favor over the persecuted. This 
cause is to be tried, not by violence, but at the bar 'of 
public opinion. And whenever an intelligent decision 
on full and impartial testimony shall be given by the 
tribunal, all the agitators will be powerless. Violent 
men, on all sides, may threaten what they please. They 
might as well threaten the Pacific Ocean as the resolved 
judgment and conscience of the nation. Our first duty 
is, therefore, to enlighten the public mind. Make the 
daily journals feel that it is their interest to spread all 
the facts and the testimony of all sides before their 
readers. Make use of the mail for distribution of 
documents to your acquaintance. Organize a system 
of political colportage, which shall leave tracts at every 
man's door, and through the crowds at the markets 



28 



send them everywhere on the wings of the wind. 
This is the true system of republican government, and 
the true way to correct a public evil. 

2. A second duty of the crisis is the pecuniary relief 
of the sufferers in Kansas. The operations of husband- 
ry have been broken up by ruthless invaders. There 
will be no crops to nourish the inhabitants. Every de- 
partment of trade and labor has been so paralyzed by 
fear and violence that industrious men are without the 
means of livelihood. Behind all the other enemies of 
Kansas stalks famine, threatening to complete the ex- 
termination. Families are compelled to leave their 
homes and farms for want of bread. Besides which, in- 
satiable robbery has plundered hundreds of every thing 
that could be carried off. Horses, wagons, oxen, cows, 
sheep, provisions, clothing, money have been seized in 
broad daylight by roving marauders. The suffering in- 
habitants must return penniless to their former homes, 
or they must starve on the spot amidst their own fertile 
but desolated fields. Send them the relief which they 
need. Cheer their disconsolate spirits by the knowl- 
edo-e that there are thousands of their countrymen who 
sympathize wdth their misfortunes and condemn then- 
wrono-s. Give them food to eat and raiment to put on. 
Provide them with bread in the wilderness, and bid 
them remain and put their trust in the God of forces. 
The ao-encies of collection and distribution are already 
organized. Our brethren in other cities have already 
beo-un to pour in their benefactions. Let the city of 
the peace and liberty-loving Peun emulate their ex- 
ample. 



29 



3. The third duty of the crisis is the reinforcement 
of the pioneers in Kansas with Free State settlers. The 
organic law of the Territory has guaranteed to its act- 
ual settlers the right of determining their own insti- 
tutions. The American people will see that that right 
is not defeated by force or fraud. The soil was once 
consecrated unto freedom. It is yet pledged to free- 
dom, if free men have the enterprise to settle it. If 
four to one is not a sufficient majority to secure the 
pledged result, then send ten to one. If twenty thou- 
sand will not make it free, then pour in one hundred 
thousand. The law of majorities is to settle it. Let it 
be so large that force and fraud will be unavailing. 
Even armed marauders will have to yield to public 
opinion. Let its expression in the multiiDlication of 
liberty-loving settlers be overwhelming. Send men 
who are industrious and will work ; men who are in- 
telligent and know their rights ; bold, and will defend 
them. Send men who are peaceable and patient, who 
love law and order in its true sense, and have property 
dependent on its preservation; whose hands love the 
implements of labor, but who will not hesitate to take 
down the implements of war to repel the invaders of 
their household. Send them with their flocks and their 
herds, with their wives and their little ones, with their 
saw-mills and their schoolmasters and their ministers, 
and let them go up into this land that floweth with 
milk and honey, and the God who guided Israel will 
give them an inheritance. The question must be de- 
cided not by the rifle and the bowie knife, but by the 
axe and the ploughshare. Therefore, appeal to no war- 



32 



and beseech his intervention. Let us beseech Him to 
ameliorate sectional animosities, and to turn the hearts 
of the people like rivers of Avater to the common good. 
Let us thus remember God in our calamity, and the 
God that maketh men to be of one mind in an house 
will restore peace to our distracted coun4:ry, and estab- 
lish our liberties on an impregnable foundation. . 



